What is a Virtual Assistant? This is a question you’ve probably asked yourself if you have heard of the title “Virtual Assistant.” A Virtual Assistant (VA) is an independent contractor and a home-based entrepreneur who uses the Internet, phone, fax, email, and other technology to communicate with his/her clients.
Virtual Assistants provide administrative support and/or specialized business services. Many Virtual Assistants were most often Administrative or Executive Assistants in traditional work environments before launching their Virtual Assistance Practices. Most Virtual Assistants work from their home office and, with the help of technology, other virtual locations. Technology has enabled Virtual Assistants to have a global client base.
Virtual Assistants: What do they do?
Ok…so now you know the answer to the question of what a Virtual Assistant is, now let’s talk about what they do.
Virtual Assistants provide much of the same services as an onsite employee, but without the added expense to employers. Some provide general services while others provide more specialized services such as a Virtual Real Estate Assistant.
Here are some services Virtual Assistants offer (this is not an exhaustive list):
- Website and Graphic Design – Website Maintenance and Updates – Online and Offline Marketing and Promotion – Accounting / Bookkeeping – Data Entry – PowerPoint Presentations – Advertising in Print Media – Desktop Publishing – Custom Ad Design for print media – Travel Arrangements – Writing, Editing & Researching Services – Secretarial Services – Word Processing – General and Legal Transcription Services – Database Management – Personal Assistant Services – Event Planning – Technical Support – Coaching / Consulting – Customer Service – Real Estate Support
These are just a few services you can offer as a Virtual Assistant. The more specialized your services are, the less saturated the market will be. Try to find a niche and target market if you have a specialized skill and/or expertise.
Basic equipment and software needed can include, but is not limited to, the following:
Basic Equipment:
- Computer and/or Laptop – Cable, Satellite, or DSL Internet Service – Modem – Fax Machine – Printer – Copier – Scanner – Telephone with unlimited long distance service – CD Burner
Software:
- Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Word, Outlook, Publisher) – Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage (for web design, editing, and maintenance) – Instant Messenger (AOL, Yahoo, MSN etc.) – Antivirus Software – Adobe Acrobat
While all the equipment and software above is not mandatory, they are very useful and worthwhile to learn how to use.
The Virtual Assistance industry is growing tremendously. It has enabled many to start their own business while being at home with their family. There are many great resources out there if you’re an aspiring Virtual Assistant
By: India Jordan
Archive for November, 2009
What Is A Virtual Assistant?
November 30th, 2009Pana Logic to Unveil Its Desktop Virtualization Solutions at the 2008 Government and Health Technologies Conference and Expo
November 22nd, 2009FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Pana Logic to Unveil its Desktop Virtualization Solutions at the 2008 Government and Health Technologies Conference and Expo.
2008 – Toronto, Canada – Pana Logic will be presenting its products and solutions at 2008 Government & Health Technologies Conference and Expo.
Founded in 2006, Pano Logic is a provider of desktop virtualization solutions aiming to eliminate the cost, complexity and security inherent in traditional PC environments. Extending the power of server virtualization to the desktop, Pano Logic has enabled a totally new approach to the traditional PC-centric desktop architecture by creating the first all hardware, no software architecture and providing a superior user desktop experience with better management, security and usability features than traditional PC deployments.
The Government and Health Technologies Conference and Expo will focus on latest IT products and solutions that made a remarkable revolution in the field of technology in the healthcare and public service industry, such as Web 2.0, Patient Monitoring Systems, Automated case management solutions, Document Management, Business Intelligence, Mobile Data Systems, RFID Solutions, Biometrics, desktop virtualization solutions and much more.
For registering Early-Bird Passes, please visit http://gov.wowgao.com/registration
To know more about the event simply visit http://gov.wowgao.com
About WowGao Inc.
WowGao Inc. is an award winning Event Management Company. We have been organizing and managing internationally renowned conferences and expositions focusing on latest innovations and developments in Information Technology Industry since 2003. Our featured events are:
- 2008 Wireless & Mobile Expo and Conference, July 15 & 16, 2008
- 2008 RFID Forum, July 15 & 16, 2008
For any media queries:
Director of Marketing,
416-292-0038 ext 812
attendee@wowgao.com
GAO Group is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. GAO Group has marketing, sales, customer support, manufacturing and R & D facilities in various countries, with most of its staff located in Canada, USA, Europe and China.
The first Member Company, GAO Research Inc., was founded on June 2, 1992 and it quickly established its reputation as an R & D power house in the embedded industry. GAO Group has continually grown and has become a conglomerate of fast growing companies with an enormous international customer base and an extensive network of VARs, distributors, resellers, and strategic partners in diversified industries worldwide.
By: Wowgao
New Forum Launched for Open Discussion of Virtualization – Virtualizationchat.com!
November 21st, 2009
Virtualization is one of the most proven technologies that is swiftly transforming the landscape of IT as well as fundamentally changing the manner in which people compute it. This is basically a technology that benefits computer users especially Mac enthusiasts, government organizations, commercial businesses, IT professionals as well as laymen; in an effective way. The fact of the matter is that virtualization technologies such as VMWare, Microsoft’s Hyper-V, and 3tera’s, AppLogic, help their clients use less hardware and resources, by creating “Virtual” servers, and infrastructures.
The biggest advantage attached with the virtualization technologies is that it helps in saving energy, money as well as time. Following are presented some of the valuable benefits attached with the process of virtualization:
Infrastructure optimization and server consolidation: the first and foremost benefit connected with the process of virtualization is that it helps in achieving the optimum utilization of the resources. As a matter of fact, you can pool the resources of infrastructure as well as break the legacy of the model of one application to a single server.
Cot reduction of the physical infrastructure: with the virtualization forums, it becomes easy for you to reduce the IT hardware as well as number of servers present in the data center. This greatly leads to reduction in the costs of IT especially in the areas of power, real estate as well as cooling requirements.
Improved operational responsiveness and flexibility: this process of virtualization also offer innovative ways of managing the IT infrastructure. Along with this, this process is also commonly known to help the IT administrators in spending lees time on virtually all the repetitive tasks like configuration, maintenance, provisioning and monitoring.
Improved continuity of business and increased availability of application: the process of virtualization also helps in eliminating the planned downtime as well as in recovering rapidly from the unplanned outages. The fact of the matter is that this software provides the capability of securing the backup as well as in migration of the whole virtual environment. The added advantage attached with this process is that you do not come across any kind of interruption in the services.
Improved desktop security and manageability: manage, deploy as well as monitor the desktop environments in order to access the remotely or locally; the network connection.
Vmware approach in the case of virtualization
Vmware helps to insert a very thin layer of software directly upon the hardware of computers. This creates the virtual server which can operate any OS independent of eachother. As a matter of fact you could run a windows, and linux virtual machine parallel with eachother, on the same piece of physical hardware.
Companies like 3Tera.com offer Applogic, their Grid Operating System, which gives a virtual environment across several “Grid” servers. Imagine having an entire N-tier architecture from firewall, load balancer, web servers, database servers, and NAS storage server, all tied together using one system with a GUI interface for managing all the virtual systems within the Virtual Datacenter. The technology has many benefits, one of them being built in redundancy of your data across several “nodes” or physical servers.
All of these topics and many more are being discussed at www.virtualizationchat.com.
By: Akash Tripathi
